A selection of weekly articles by top Bahamian commentators.

January 28, 2008

Secret Ballot and Election Fever in the Bahamas

by Craig Butler

I commented recently that the voting process in the Bahamas is not secret. That comment was picked up by the Nassau Guardian, which precipitated a call from ZNS asking for further comment. I am also led to believe that my comment was alluded to in the Election Court.

First of all I would like to say to Senior Justice Allen and Justice Isaacs (the presiding judges of the Election Court) that I never in any way meant to impugn their integrity. Nothing could be further from the truth. The genesis of my comment was based on the voting process itself.

All of us who have voted in an election know what I am talking about. When you walk into a polling station someone takes your voter's card and calls out your name. Your voter’s card has a number attached to it.

Then you are giving a ballot, which for some reason has a counterfoil that is individualized with a number. At this point I can’t say exactly what happens, but there is a way of recording either your name or number next to the ballot number. And that is why I say the system is compromised and the ballot is not secret. If that were not so, then how could those 110 voters from Pinewood that had their ballots discarded by the Election Court be identified?

Those in favour of the present system point out that the ballot box is under lock and key, but to them I say that there are always those who are devious enough to destroy the integrity of the system.

I am told that after the original counting takes place and the results are made official the ballots are kept for a period of time - perhaps six months - and if no challenges are lodged then they are destroyed.

Now presumably during this period these boxes are still under lock and key and in the care of honourable people. This is that part that scares me. I’m not calling all of these people into question, but I am saying there is an opportunity to act.

Such doubts should never arise, and the situation can be easily rectified. If we truly had a secret ballot then we would have had to call a by-election in Pinewood. What we need is an electronic voting system, which will remove the need for counterfoils or any other sort of identifying marks.

We like to think that we are a first world country, and take every opportunity to describe ourselves in that fashion, but when it comes to implementing cutting-edge technology we are sorely lacking. There is the same problem with the judging of the Junkanoo parades. It seems that we prefer inefficiency because it affords us an opportunity to manipulate the system.

Other country’s in the region have been able to implement an electronic voting system so why can’t we? We don't need the most modern machines - I’m sure we can get by with the older analog models. These are the one that have either the levers or the push button letters.

With machines there would be no need to register your voter’s card. Once it has been determined at the polling station that the card is valid, you would be allowed to vote. Using machines would also make it virtually impossible to spoil a ballot, and producing the results would be a lot quicker.

The problem identified in Pinewood did not take place at the polls but was inherent in our voter registration system. This is not an FNM or PLP problem, as both have failed to address the faults while in government. It’s a national problem to which we have not paid any attention.

We must ensure that only those who are entitled to vote, do in fact vote. Part of our problem is that we are one of those Commonwealth countries that doesn't allow voting by non-nationals who are Commonwealth citizens. When I lived in England I was able to vote and the same was true when I lived in Jamaica. The Bahamas used to allow this but later changed our rules to nationals only.

I have heard far too many people, especially civil servants, express concern over the present system of balloting. They have gone as far as to say it is a reason why they don’t vote. A loss in confidence in the system can lead to erosion in the process, and we must ensure that does not happen.

The government must address this issue immediately. Boundaries must be well delineated and announced six months before an election so that everyone knows what constituency they are in. The voter's list should be settled at least three months before an election. And many other problems can be cured by a strict adherence to procedure. However, it will probably be 2011 before we even think about this again.

I also noted on Monday that both PLP and FNM supporters were excited, and it even got out of hand in Bank Lane where a large crowd had gathered. A female PLP supporter was said to have assaulted an FNM male supporter.

The 2007 election was eight months ago and feelings are still running high. Politics should never be so personal that we feel the need to fight, but that is how it has been ever since May 2. Perhaps with the loss of the Pinewood Election Court case the PLP will accept that they can not regain the government in the short-term and things may return to normal. I hope so.

Comments

we do not need an electronic voting system and most definitely we did not need a by-election.What We need is for Bahamians to stand up for their "rights and "rites" and vote wisely based on a candidates stability and reliability to to perform his job and live out his promises rather than voting based on likability and popularity.And final We simply need a Government who will do his job,do it right ,is not crooked and is stable. thats what we need!!!!

You are absolutely correct. I served as a Presiding Officer in the 1987 election and part of my job was to record the counterfoil number and the voter's card number. The ballot is secret in that one cannot easily reconcile the ballot to the individual, but it is perfectly possible to do so.

With regard to Junkanoo, however, I worked in the tally room for almost 20 years. The system that presently exists has become far too complex and difficult to manipulate. Whatever errors exist are the result of its inefficiencies, which are vast.

WE DO NOT NEED an electronic voting system. Have you not been paying attention to all the issues they are having with those things in other countries?

There are a few countries who haven't had issues but that's only because their systems wasn't built by any of the North American companies who have proven time and again how pathetic their systems are.

The voter registration problem.
When I got my voters card we had to spend half an hour flipping though a big, old, thick book of outdated maps trying to find my street that did not exist on any of them. Then they had to call someone at another registration location near my house and give them the directions so they could ask people who live in the area if such a place exists!

Crap like that could be avoided by having an electronic REGISTRATION system (not voting). It doesn't even have to be a data driven "system". The just need to give the people working at the registration areas a laptop with a high resolution map of the island with an overlay indicating the boundaries of the constituencies. This is NOT hard to do. It is NOT expensive to create such a map (well, maybe we'll have to pay a bit to the company who took the photos). Government agencies already have laptops in their posession.

Google Maps and Microsoft Live Maps and Nasa WorldWind and others ALL show my street, my house, and my car parked in front of my house with my orange cat sitting on the car!

With a good map there should be no uncertainty about where a person lives and what constituency they are allowed to vote in.

In another stunning blow to the security and integrity of Diebold's electronic voting machines, someone has made a copy of the key which opens ALL Diebold e-voting machines from a picture on the company's own website.